Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn: Understanding How We Respond to Trauma

You’ve likely heard of the fight-or-flight response to a threat, but did you know there actually are four different ways that your body might respond?

“There’s also freeze—picture a deer caught in headlights,” said Ingrid Clayton, PhD, clinical psychologist and trauma therapist. That is when there is a lot of activation in the body, but it is frozen and can’t be mobilized.

And there’s the fawn response, or fawning—when you shapeshift to appease someone or caretake in a relationship to lessen the relational harm. This behavior is common in terms of people-pleasing or even co-dependency.

Fight, flight, freeze and fawn are not conscious choices that we make in response to a threat. They all are reflexive, unconscious behaviors designed to keep us safe. These life-saving responses are made in the moment. If you think about a prey animal in the wild, that animal doesn’t stop and overthink. The animal runs if it feels a threat or senses a threat is coming. The body always prioritizes safety and survival, no matter what, and that is very adaptive to each situation.

Here’s more about how your body responds to threats, from Dr. Clayton.

Context Counts

The body’s response to threats or trauma tends to be very context-dependent in terms of the hierarchy or power in the relationship or the system that you’re navigating. Example: For a child, who is not very empowered in the family system, a fight response might make a conflict worse. Flight won’t work—where is a child going to run? The context of the relationships determines which response the body chooses.

While all of the four big responses are equal-opportunity defenders, there often is gendered cultural conditioning at play. Women, in general, have been conditioned to fawn and be sweet. Example: A woman might say she likes a gift even if she doesn’t.

“Even I have probably fawned in the recent past, ”says Dr. Clayton. As a woman, I know that my voice isn’t always welcomed or respected, and sometimes fawning is the best choice in the moment. When it happens, I’m not mad—I’m glad my body chose it.

A lot of boys, on the other hand, have been conditioned toward the fight response—they’re told it’s okay to be rough and tumble.

Concerns About Fawning

A fawning response often is an easy way to get out of a sticky situation with a boss, a coworker or even that person who says something stupid to you at the supermarket. But fawning also can become a day-in, day-out response to navigate a difficult living environment, such as an abusive relationship…when every day poses a threat. When this happens, you lose track of where you end and the fawning begins—the body goes into fawning mode 10 steps in advance because it is so hypervigilant and oriented toward your safety. The “you” starts to go missing. The fawning pattern can become entrenched over time. Some people default to the fawn response even when it’s not needed, simply out of habit, because there was a time in the past when it was deeply necessary.

If you often fawn in relationships, try to understand what’s happening by asking yourself questions…

• Do I feel unsafe? Do I feel resentful?
• Do I feel like I have permission to speak up or set boundaries, have a voice or an opinion?
• How would I take care of myself if I felt like I could?
• What has happened when I tried?

This starts to give you a sense of agency, that you do exist in the equation, and presents you with the possibility that you can stop being so reflexively hyper-attuned to everybody else. You can look at entrenched patterns and realize that you can move the needle in another direction, mobilize yourself when your overriding response is to hunker down and lean more toward a fight response—having a voice, asserting yourself, setting boundaries—when your appeasement wants to take over.

Growing these other potentials—what I refer to as unfawning—from a body-based perspective can allow us to have more flexibility. And that’s the ideal—to be more flexible, not to avoid trauma responses at all costs because you’re always going to face threats.

When it’s time to consider finding support from a therapist: If trying on your own doesn’t help…if you can’t find reciprocal healthy relationships…if you constantly feel like you’re playing small…if having a voice feels terrifying…if setting healthy boundaries feels unavailable to you—that’s when you want a professional who is not just trauma-informed but trauma-trained. They know how to work with the nervous system to cultivate a sense of internal safety in the body. It involves a process that’s very different from traditional talk therapy.

There are several trauma modalities, including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Somatic Experiencing. These are just a few approaches designed specifically to work with trauma and the nervous system.

When you contact a potential therapist, don’t hesitate to ask direct questions about their training. You can ask…

• What specific trauma training have you completed?
• Do you work with complex/relational trauma?
• What modalities or tools do you use, and why?

A trauma-trained therapist should be able to clearly describe the methods he/she uses and explain how those tools support healing. Trauma work is different from traditional talk therapy—it’s not just about insight. It involves helping the body experience safety again.

Where to look for a therapist: The Psychology Today therapist directory can be a useful starting point. Therapists can list their specialties, including trauma, and often name the specific modalities they’re trained in. From there, you can narrow your search and schedule consultations to get a sense of fit.